I'm Political Economy editor at Forbes, editor of RealClearMarkets.com, plus a senior economic advisor to Toreador Research & Trading. I have book on how the economy works, Popular Economics: What LeBron James, the Rolling Stones and Downton Abbey Can Teach You About Economics that is set for release in April of 2015. I have a weekly column on Mondays at Forbes.com.

Thoughts On Guns and Gun Control From Someone Who Doesn't Own One

.Americans purchased a record number of guns of guns in 2012. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)

Wandering each day outside my office building in Washington, D.C. is a man known for his incessant screaming. Yelling in a foreign language at no one in particular, his voice is one of the constants for those who office around 17th and L Street. It’s probably not politic to say it, but this man would presumably be classified as “crazy” or “insane” if analyzed.

What’s notable about the above is how very unremarkable it is. Most who work in an urban setting can probably describe someone similar who loiters near their own building. In a former life up in New York, a man affectionately referred to as “The Preacher” would give unintelligible sermons to the occupants of office buildings around 48th & Park. No matter the city, those who go to work in crowded business districts probably have stories of seemingly unhinged individuals whom they encounter or witness on a regular basis.

Why is this perhaps relevant to a column about guns and gun control? It is given the view among some that the deinstitutionalization of the insane has yielded a body count.

At first glance it’s perhaps hard to argue with this line of thinking. Only a truly crazy person could be so cruel as to open fire on defenseless individuals in movie theaters, or on innocent children in schools, so why not re-institutionalize the insane? Hindsight reveals the tautological reality that crazy people murder, so why not pre-empt them?

Well, the answer why is that we’re not a police state; that, or we don’t want to be one. What’s amazing about the institutionalization argument is that it’s popular among those who are normally very skeptical of big government. If so, re-institutionalization of the insane should horrify them.

It should because “crazy” or “insane” are two very broad words, and they mean different things to different people. If this is doubted, one need only navigate the crowded walkways of a big state university. There are lots of human oddities on campus, many “normal” people would call them crazy, but we taxpayers probably can’t afford to pay for the housing of all those who appear different at State U, let alone those we encounter on city streets.

Importantly, institutionalization of all who appear insane with an eye on safety would be costly in ways well beyond what can be measured in dollars. Indeed, the greatest cost would be in terms of freedoms handed over to government. John Stuart Mill long ago observed that “The only insecurity which is altogether paralyzing to the active energies of producers is that arising from the government,” and paralysis is what we’d achieve if we empowered government or entities acting for it to rid our streets of “crazy” people who might do us harm.

Though politicians and media members often act as though the opposite is true, government workers aren’t angels. To hand them the power to decide who is and is not fit for polite society is a frightening thought, and one we’ll ideally never become familiar with. Worse, it wouldn’t work. Leaving aside the sick-inducing vision of government officials rounding up those they deem threats to our wellbeing, they’re going to be very wrong – frequently. Harmless individuals will be committed to psychiatric wards, while those with murderous intent will still walk the streets.

As tragic as what happened in Newtown was, empowering the government or even private individuals to round up those they consider crazy would yield its own police-state horrors, and would in no way shield us from future Newtown-style massacres. Particularly in a free society, those who want to kill will be able to. The latter is a terrible reality to contemplate, but much worse would be a truly dystopian society in which allegedly noble government figures would lock up potentially unhinged people with our safety in mind.

Another popular view (Michael Medved in USA Today is the latest to promote it) is that Hollywood is to blame. The latter is an easy target. Full of faddish, emotional people ever ready to disarm the mouthbreathers in flyover country, for a living these same people often make blockbuster films marked by excessive gun violence. It’s said that the movie Sideways and its dismissive description of Merlot led to plummeting sales of the latter, so if Hollywood influences our culture, why not ask it to tone down the violence in its movies?

Though not a fan of blockbuster shoot-em-ups, the above idea would not only infringe on free speech rights, but it’s also truly silly. As evidenced by ticket sales, consumers very much enjoy violent, escapist cinema. Of course, those same ticket sales (along with booming sales of violent video games) for gun laden films reveal that they don’t in any way foster a violent, murderous society. They’re once again escapist, and that’s it. People watch the films and play the games, then return to their normal lives. Once again, only a truly crazy person would or could murder or be needlessly violent toward an innocent.

Still, Hollywood’s hypocrisy is impressive. Though the film industry’s booming nature is to some degree an effect of popular films that glorify gun violence, this didn’t stop celebrities (as Medved reported) from asking President Obama for more controls on gun ownership. Their logic seemingly is less guns, less gun violence.

About the above debate, it’s already occurred, and nothing written here will inform it any more. I’ll only say that as someone who doesn’t own a gun, I’m not fearful of those who do. John Podhoretz wrote in the New York Post that 35 million American households have guns, but as evidenced by how few of those homes are murderous ones, gun ownership in no way correlates with gun violence.

Furthermore, as Forbes contributor Richard Miniter points out in his latest book, Leading From Behind, “virtually all guns involved in crimes in the United States come from the black market – not licensed gun dealers.” In short, those who want to kill with guns will get them no matter the laws on the books. Laws meant to restrict gun ownership will only disarm some law abiding citizens (others will properly ignore the rules) attempting to protect themselves. If that’s not enough for readers, ask yourself how long it would take a presumed mass murderer to be shot down at a gathering of plain-clothed police officers.

As the title of this piece makes plain, I don’t own a gun. But without minimizing for a second the gun tragedies that have needlessly wrecked lives, it seems that the empowering of the state to reduce gun violence will do little in that regard, all the while doing great damage to our natural rights as human beings to live as we want. It’s a cliché to say that our world is a risky one, but since there’s truth in all clichés, seemingly the only answer to a world that is occasionally violent is to allow the non-violent to protect themselves from the murderous few.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

Possession of guns does not correlate with gun violence? Well, yes, if you throw out the data, there’s no data, right?

The US has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world. It also has 4X the rate of gun related homicide compared to other advanced countries. Certainly Switzerland is in the opposite direction, but their rate of gun ownership is HALF of ours.

What, exactly, is gun ownership designed to achieve, compared to the level of massacre we have in this country? Our death toll is roughly at the rate of the weekly body count during the Vietnam war. What do we get from this? Why do we put up with it?

Completely missing from any rational American discussion of guns is why we have this gun centered culture. If our constitution allowed everyone to have a nuclear reactor, would we wait until a meltdown occurred before regulating them or would we regulate them beforehand? Yet no one asks why non-regulation is a good thing for guns (and, please, don’t tell me that, with 300,000,000 guns in our country we have ANY regulation of guns.)

What we really should be doing is asking the HARD questions about guns. And, as this article proves, no one is. It’s a peculiar American institution, our gun culture.

Even in the military, you do not go strolling around the base or up and down the streets carrying weapons.

Your weapon is issued to you. You are given specific orders when and how to use your weapon. And you are only issued a weapon when you are on duty and subject to the rules of the UCMJ. When you are not on duty, it is expected that your weapon will be kept unloaded under lock and key or returned to the armoury.

This is a very good discussion of the problems associated with the present controversy in my opinion. My own opinions and thoughts are split along these lines over the same or similar thoughts.

Thank you for a very good post John. Before we decide what we should do, we need to figure out what we can do that will help or hinder a resolution.

Are there any editors at Forbes.com or are people allowed to just make any assertions they like without any evidence or even a cogent argument?

“Virtually all guns used in crimes come from the black market” … Really! And *where* do those black market guns come from, originally? Are they … imported from Mexico? Nope. We export illegal guns to Mexico because they are so easy to buy here. Are they sent over from China? Nope. As gun rights folks like to tell you, China has strict gun control laws.

Wow. Where do all those bad, black market guns come from? Do they materialize out of thin air?

Here’s your answer: they are sold to criminals by irresponsible gun dealers, they are bought on the private market where there are no background checks and finally, they are stolen from legal gun owners who refuse who leave them lying around for criminals.

Those same legal gun owners are the source of the guns used in most mass shootings and almost all school shootings. Because the same people who leave guns lying around for criminals also insist on keeping them easily available to their mentally unstable family members.

EVERY GUN ON THE STREET STARTED ITS LIFE IN THE HANDS OF A LAW-ABIDING GUN OWNER.

Who is to blame for these guns on the street? Law-abiding gun owners who leave them available for theft. Irresponsible private sellers who have no legal obligation to check their buyers. Irresponsible gun dealers who just want to make money and who have a criminal disregard for public safety.

And because the NRA protects all of those people and fights laws that would force them to manage their firearms more responsibly, we are all at risk.

I have no problem with gun owners or gun dealers … until their behavior affects me. I particularly have a problem with people who might prevent my child from entering second grade.

Stop this BS. The illegal gun market is fueled by the legal one. Laws aimed at changing the behavior of law-abiding people do change how many guns are available to criminals.

If CT had a safe storage law, Nancy Lanza would have followed it, and we would have 20 more children alive today. Stop talking about criminals — we already have laws about crime. Now we need laws about irresponsible gun ownership and gun dealing. No one has the right to play with my child’s life.

First, you rightly identify the criminals as the problem here. But blaming the legal gun market for the behavior of criminals dealing in the illegal gun market is far too long a stretch.

Felons in possession of guns are in violation of both state and federal statute. I have sat through many a sentencing hearing when some idiot was convicted of a felony. The judge invariably explains that they cannot possess (not own, but merely possess) a gun. This is done in great detail and words of one syllable. The explanations, it seems, are never heeded.

So I propose a law to be enacted by each state:

1. If an officer encounters a felon in possession of a firearm (in legalese, if there is probably cause), the officer is obliged to make an immediate arrest. This parallels many state statutes on making mandatory arrests in domestic violence cases, so there should be no problem with it.

2. Following arraignment, if the court determines there was, in fact, probable cause to believe a felon was in possession of a firearm, then the court has no discretion to allow pretrial release. A felon in possession is clearly an immediate threat to public safety and an individual with ample motive for fleeing, so this provision is not unreasonable.

3. Where such a charge is at issue, the prosecutor has no discretion to dismiss the charge without showing at an open public hearing that the charge is entirely without merit: the case must go to trial, or the defendant must plead guilty. In no case is there prosecutorial discretion to plea bargain the matter.

4. Upon conviction, the sentence is 50 years of confinement, with no judicial discretion for a reduction of the sentence and no allowance for a reduced sentence for good behavior while incarcerated.

5. The prison system is authorized, upon accepting an individual convicted under this statute, to release non violent offenders with a total of 50 years of potential prison time to serve. In this way the law has no fiscal impact.

We need to hold criminals responsible for their behavior, not shift that responsibility to the law abiding.